Episode 522 – The Farm School

Farmers play an important roll in our every day lives. With the average age of a farmer close to 60, it got us thinking about the younger generation and how someone would become a farmer.

Over the past season we have looked at owning a hobby farm with many families just jumping into farming, but what if you weren’t ready to own your own farm? How would one go about learning how to farm if they didn’t grow up on a farm, in a sustainable way?

We found one solution, Farm School.

On today’s episode, Joe and the Crew enroll in the Farm School of Maggie’s Farm in Athol, MA, where they learn the ins and outs of what it takes to run a farm.

Across the country there are schools that are teaching people how to run a farm from the ground up. The students at the Farm School live and work on the 180-acre farm. Along the way, they are guided through the seasons and every aspect of working the land, including raising crops, livestock and bees, to homesteading skills to extensive classroom time and field trips.

Ben Holms and a group of like-minded friends founded The Farm School. Today, the school enrolls 12 students a year where they help run the sustainable farm, market and sell the produce, meat, and eggs to the community, and learn what it takes to maintain this lifestyle.

Growing A Greener World is a national gardening series on Public Television that features organic gardening, green living and farm to table cooking. Each episode focuses on compelling and inspirational people making a difference through gardening. This gardening series covers everything from edible gardening and sustainable agriculture to seasonal cooking and preserving the harvest.

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Hey Darel. Sorry about that. We’ve updated the shownotes page for the Farm School episode so that finding your local CSA is much easier. Here’s the direct link that we posted: http://www.localharvest.org/ Thanks for letting us know!